Tiger and Dragon Free Play in Demo Mode by Red Rake Gaming

Tiger and Dragon review

Theme and Storyline

The titular creatures in Tiger and Dragon are the biggest, baddest predators in the Chinese Zodiac but make next to no appearance on the reels of this game. Instead, the player is presented with the Great Wall of China as the backdrop for a very large set of very interesting reels on which many of the slots are blank.

When the Tiger and Dragon do make an appearance, it is to the sounds of a great fanfare as these are the highest paying symbols and the guardians of an intriguing setting for a slot.

Graphics, Sounds and Animations

The graphics on this game are beautiful, the background is well painted, but it is the striking, wall like presence of the reels that really catches the eye. On the wide and tall reels, grey blocks seem to cover the majority of places where the symbols should go.

What symbols there are have a simplified visual style, with just letters and shapes printed onto them.

The music is a gentle percussion heavy version of Chinese Classical music that sets the scene but doesn’t interfere with gameplay.

Gameplay

The most striking thing about the base game of Tiger and Dragon is the size of the reels. There are six of them, each ten rows tall. Across these huge reels, instead of winlines, Tiger and Dragon adopts an any way wins system where three or more symbols (or two or more for the Tiger and Dragon symbols) on consecutive reels starting from reel one will net you a payout.

In addition to the regular symbols there is a Non-Winning symbol, the grey blocks which contribute to the Roulette accumulator (details below) but do not make up wins.

When you do hit a win, a cascade feature is triggered which destroys the winning symbols and drops new symbols down from the top of the reels. Winnings are paid out when no more cascades are possible.

Overall, Tiger and Dragon ties together a number of design and gameplay elements in an elegant manner that is worth checking out.

Wilds, Bonuses and Free Spins

The Wild symbol substitutes for all symbols except the Bonus symbol and the Non-Winning symbol.

Every spin which does not win anything, 0.75% of the bet is added to the stake line on the Tiger and Dragon Roulette counter. On these same spins, the number of Non-Winning symbol is recorded and the number is added to the symbol line of the Tiger and Dragon Roulette counter. When the symbol line reaches 10,000 symbols, the Roulette minigame is triggered.

The stake for this game is the accumulated amount on the stake line.

The Roulette minigame offers you a choice of Tiger and Dragon.. Once chosen, the wheel is spun once. If it lands on your chosen animal’s section of the wheel, you win the multiplier expressed there and are allowed to spin again. You can spin the wheel up to 100 times, but the feature ends as soon as the wheel doesn't land on a wedge of the selected animal. When that happens, the new multiplier is added to the total and the feature ends.

The Free Spin bonus is triggered when you get five or more respins in one round. Hitting a Bonus symbol will reduce this number of respins by one per symbol.

If you hit five or more respins, you will get ten free spins, with additional spins as per the Bonus Meter for additional respins. The multiplier starts at one and increases by one after every free spin.

Bet Sizes, RTP and Variance

The return to player of this game is 95.30%. This is lower than our yardstick for average of roughly 96% and so counts heavily against the game. Though this is somewhat made up for by the volatility of Tiger and Dragon, which is high. High volatility goes well with our preferred slot machine strategies as we favour maximising the variance of the game a player chooses.

The range of bets on the site we tested ran from a minimum bet per spin of $/£/€0.20 up to a maximum of $/£/€35.00 per spin.

Conclusion

Tiger and Dragon is a lovely slot. From its visual design, through its audioscape, to its carefully crafted bonus and free spin systems, great thought has clearly been put into every element of this game.

Its major detraction is a relatively low return to player of just 95.30%. However, this is made up for by its many other positives, in particular the high volatility of the game.

We recommend this to players who are comfortable with the high vig.